Grayson nuclear power. A LFTR?

I was thinking about the power challenges and requirements the graysons had to overcome. Their planet was constantly trying to kill them with high concentrations of heavy metals and water that was too acidic. The planetary population suffered stunted physical growth and shortened life spans.
someone designed a Thorium based molten salt reactor called the lftr 49. It in theory can burn up nuclear waste. As a extra kick the lifter 49 can produce particles for life saving Targeted Alpha Therapy that the Graysons would need before Manticore arrived with their modern medical technology. I think the Graysons developed something like this.......Maybe?

https://articles.thmsr.nl/the-flibe-ene ... 9bffcd71dd

dlewis0160 wrote:I was thinking about the power challenges and requirements the graysons had to overcome. Their planet was constantly trying to kill them with high concentrations of heavy metals and water that was too acidic. The planetary population suffered stunted physical growth and shortened life spans.
someone designed a Thorium based molten salt reactor called the lftr 49. It in theory can burn up nuclear waste. As a extra kick the lifter 49 can produce particles for life saving Targeted Alpha Therapy that the Graysons would need before Manticore arrived with their modern medical technology. I think the Graysons developed something like this.......Maybe?

https://articles.thmsr.nl/the-flibe-ene ... 9bffcd71dd

Thorium reactors have been known since the 50's and India is currently throwing a lot of money at them. The primary reason they were not built is that they don't make weapons grade materials, or support the uranium extraction industry necessary for weapons grade materials. AFIK, Their efficiency has yet to be proven in a full-scale reactor, so we will see.

Now the big problem is legislation and the public scared or anything "nuclear" in the western world. All the current civilian reactors in the US were of designs finalized in the late 50s. France built some more advanced reactors, but public pressure in the EU seems to have halted their spread, and Germany are Japan are taking their reactors offline due to public pressure. The US stopped construction of new reactors in the 80, halting construction on dozens of reactors after spending billions on them, as red tape from the environmental groups caused the power companies to walk away from their investments.

There currently are 2 groups of new reactors being built in the US, of a slightly more advanced design than the normal light water and boiling water reactors, but their completion, and if any further reactors will be built in the US, is yet to be seen. China is currently building several 4th generation reactor designs, but like the new US reactors (3rd gen), these are really updates to the classic 1st gen Light water and Boiling water designs, refined, simplified and made safer and more efficient - but not really anything new.

There are dozens of interesting new designs for reactors, some of which are supposed to eat old waste, or be "nuclear batteries" which can be emplaced in local substations with no chance of going critical over the 50 year life of their fuel. I like a self-moderating design which uses lead as a coolant - if the reactor gets too hot, the heat melts more lead in the coolant stream and the extra lead absorbs the excess neutrons, slowing the reaction and bringing it back into spec, or shutting it down totally if it cannot be controlled. But the question is whether the western world's public allow any design to be built on their doorstep, and when will the Asian populace cause a backlash against theirs.

I seem to remember that South Africa was working on a pebble bed design. Have to look and see what I can find.

jdtinIA wrote:I seem to remember that South Africa was working on a pebble bed design. Have to look and see what I can find.

China has been working on the concept for quite a long time now and they are about to start up a demonstration reactor.

Joat42 wrote:

jdtinIA wrote:I seem to remember that South Africa was working on a pebble bed design. Have to look and see what I can find.

China has been working on the concept for quite a long time now and they are about to start up a demonstration reactor.

The US has had a number of pebble bed reactors for military applications over the years. In the 90's "project Timberwind" using a pebble bed reactor to heat rocket exhaust was pushed by DARPA as an alternative to the Atlas V/Delta IV Rockets then in development. In the 50s and 60s, the Air Force actually built pre-production pebble bed reactors for "project Pluto" (Nuclear ramjet missile) and "project Weatherman" (Atomic manned bomber) and tested them fully before public/congressional backlash (and the development of ICBMs)shut down the programs. Projects ROVER and NERVA also toyed with the pebble bed design.

Several working full scale prototypes of the ramjet pebble bed reactor, starting with the Tory-IIA reactor(made by COORS!), actually "flew" in a special wind tunnel at Jackass Flats (near area 51) in the early 1960s before the Pluto project was canceled in 1964.

Project Pluto is a great thing to have deployed in a dystopian alternate world.

"SLAM was perhaps the most fearsome weapon ever conceived. The missile was designed to deliver as many as 26 nuclear bombs over the Soviet Union in a single mission. It would do this while flying at Mach 3 and less than 1,000 feet above ground level. SLAM’s shock wave overpressure alone (162 dB) would devastate structures and people along its flight path. And, as if that were not enough, the type’s nuclear-fueled ramjet would continuously spew radiation-contaminated exhaust all over the countryside."

If I am remembering correct, grat Britain and Finland are building new reactors. Don´t know what design they have....

kzt wrote:Project Pluto is a great thing to have deployed in a dystopian alternate world.

"SLAM was perhaps the most fearsome weapon ever conceived. The missile was designed to deliver as many as 26 nuclear bombs over the Soviet Union in a single mission. It would do this while flying at Mach 3 and less than 1,000 feet above ground level. SLAM’s shock wave overpressure alone (162 dB) would devastate structures and people along its flight path. And, as if that were not enough, the type’s nuclear-fueled ramjet would continuously spew radiation-contaminated exhaust all over the countryside."

Internal notes I have seen on the project have project scientists changing the meaning of SLAM to be "Slow, Low And Messy." With a weapon like that, the weapons load wase extraneous. If I remember correctly, they were planning the reactor to have a 10-15 year lifespan - so it could cruise over it's targets for a decade after the war started continuing to lay waste to the rubble with it's jet wash, before it cooled to the point where it lost velocity and had to crash.

Dystopian just doesn't seem sufficient to cover it.

Theemile wrote:Dystopian just doesn't seem sufficient to cover it.

Have you ever read Stirling's "Stone Dogs"? It's the perfect AfD second strike weapon.

Theemile wrote:The US has had a number of pebble bed reactors for military applications over the years. In the 90's "project Timberwind" using a pebble bed reactor to heat rocket exhaust was pushed by DARPA as an alternative to the Atlas V/Delta IV Rockets then in development. In the 50s and 60s, the Air Force actually built pre-production pebble bed reactors for "project Pluto" (Nuclear ramjet missile) and "project Weatherman" (Atomic manned bomber) and tested them fully before public/congressional backlash (and the development of ICBMs)shut down the programs. Projects ROVER and NERVA also toyed with the pebble bed design.

Several working full scale prototypes of the ramjet pebble bed reactor, starting with the Tory-IIA reactor(made by COORS!), actually "flew" in a special wind tunnel at Jackass Flats (near area 51) in the early 1960s before the Pluto project was canceled in 1964.

Huh, I'd never heard that Project NERVA ever looked at pebble-bed technology. Certainly the prototype nuclear thermal engines they actually built and tested at Jackass Flats weren't -- those had the nuclear fuel in solid core fuel rod elements.